Computer Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) -- TabletPC:  Customize Your Input Preferences

Input Panel preferences are accessed be tapping the Tools and Options icon (it looks like a gear) on Input Panel itself.

Figure 1. Tap the Tools and Options icon to access important Input Panel options.

The default options for the new Input Panel actually work quite well except for the important option for writing pad height. Here are what these different options mean and examples of why you might want to change them.

To edit your preferences:

1. Open Input Panel from the Tablet PC Input Panel icon in the taskbar, in-place Input Panel floating icon, or the open Input Panel gesture.
2. Tap the Tools and Options icon on Input Panel.
3. Select Options.

The options on the General tab control whether Input Panel appears when you bring your pen near the screen. The key option is the Pointing to the icon opens the panel. Choosing the in-place Input Panel may be preferable because it’s fast, and simply bringing your pen over the icon when it appears makes the experience much smoother and more like a gesture.

Figure 2. Pointing to the icon to open it makes it more gesture-like and faster.

The same logic applies to the Settings tab for the Insert button. By setting it to Pointing at the Insert button inserts text, you create what is basically a gesture to insert the text rather than a tap. When the option is set for tap to insert, I find that it slows me down—especially since you can’t use auto-insert and the quick correction features simultaneously. When the option is point to insert, everything works smoothly and efficiently.

Figure 3. Point to insert gives you a pseudo-gesture to insert text and lets you avoid lots of tapping.

The Character Pad is a new feature in Input Panel that lets you enter text as individual characters rather than words. This dramatically improves recognition for things like serial numbers and non-English text such as many e-mail addresses. Here I like to make the width of the character spaces smaller for better recognition of small handwriting. You can also set the feature to automatically recognize your writing. This makes the recognized single letters appear right away and does not affect the writing pad correction text. Next set the insertion of characters to tapping the Insert button. This gives you fast character-by-character entry but waving the pen over the Insert button inserts all the characters at once. Even though the option here says “tapping,” the setting on the previous screen actually determines the Insert button behavior.

Figure 4. Auto-recognizing characters does not interfere with writing pad corrections.

Finally, dramatically decrease the size of the writing pad. Those of you with small handwriting will need a short writing pad to get good recognition. This is an important step that many tablet users skip. You must adjust the writing pad so your tall letters (l, t, I, etc.) take up 7/8 of the writing space. This is key to good letter recognition and subsequent word recognition. Auto-insert is off by default.

Figure 5. Always adjust your writing pad size to fit your handwriting. Good recognition depends on it.

When the In-Place Input Panel Won’t Appear

There are a few places where the in-place Input Panel will not appear.

• The in-place Input Panel icon won’t appear when you are using Remote Desktop and are entering text on the remote machine.
• The in-place Input Panel icon also won’t appear for some programs, such as the Command Prompt. Since you can’t make a floating Input Panel appear without the icon, your only option is to use the docked Input Panel to enter text without a keyboard.
• Some installations of SP2 on Tablet PCs result in no in-place Input Panel icon at all. Usually removing and reinstalling SP2 will fix this problem. Sometimes it requires rebuilding the Tablet from the original recovery disks. This is rare but it has been reported.

Because the floating Input Panel can't appear without a cursor in a text-entry field, you can no longer open a floating keyboard to enter keyboard commands in programs such as Photoshop. As a workaround, you can either open Input Panel docked to the top or the bottom of the screen, or you can use the Windows On-Screen keyboard:

• Tap Start, tap All Programs, tap Accessories, tap Accessibility, and then tap On-Screen Keyboard.

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